Empty Nest: My experience getting COVID-19
Ginnie thinks she may have contracted COVID-19 just before we left on vacation. She had the sniffles and a cough all the way across Nebraska in the 100-plus-degree heat.
At a truck stop in Grand Island, she bought some sinus medication.
When we overnighted at Laramie, Wyoming, I discovered that I had neglected to bring my toothbrush.
What's a good wife do? Let me use her toothbrush, of course. Yup. After all, we share everything else. The plot thickens.
Ginnie's “cold” sort of plateaued into coughing and sneezing. No fever. After a week of vacation, we missed a family dinner the night before we returned home.
Ginnie was tired and needed to rest. I still had no symptoms.
It was on the early drive home, in Northwestern Wyoming that I began feeling puny. I asked Ginnie to drive and she jumped at the chance. She was getting bored counting antelope.
In Rawlins, Wyoming, we stopped for gas. I was so weak I could hardly get out of the car.
I was cold and my hands were shaking as I pumped the gas. What in tarnation?
Ginnie had better drive some more. In fact, she wound up driving all the way home. What a trooper.
We were going to stop in Fort Collins, Colorado, and see an old high school bud, but I was feeling so bad, I called him and canceled. I'm glad I did.
We still hadn't made a direct connection with COVID-19. I just knew I felt so bad I could hardly function.
In fact, I couldn't remember ever feeling worse.
I was popping DayQuil-NyQuil and it was totally ineffective. My throat hurt so bad I couldn't swallow, and body aches had me paralyzed. Even my skin hurt.
We overnighted somewhere in Western Nebraska, and I just passed out in the bed fully clothed. Ginnie got some food, but I could hardly eat.
The next morning, Ginnie didn't even ask if she should drive. She just drove.
At rest stops and convenience stores, people took one look at me and got out of the way. I couldn't talk. All I could do was point and grunt.
I look back on this now and think, “We spread COVID all the way across Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa. The drive across Nebraska is bad enough under good conditions. Sick? It's murder.”
I just wanted to die or get drunk or both. Either way, it would be the same end.
We stopped along I-80 and I took a picture of a dead pine tree. It reminded me of me.
We made it home on Sunday night. Without unpacking, I passed out. Before passing out I checked my temp. 101.4. Yep. I never run a fever.
Bright and early Monday morning we were at the door of urgent care. The swab up the nose is like a knife blade, but it revealed the news I didn't want to hear.
Ginnie and I were both positive for COVID-19.
Ginnie, without a fever, wasn't contagious. I was close to hospitalization. If my blood oxygen level had been low, that's where I would have been.
I was given a prescription for an anti-viral medication. I figured it would cost a fortune. It was free.
I'm quarantined, obviously. Ginnie had to go to work Tuesday and was allowed to work if she wore a mask and ate her lunch by herself. She wasn't contagious.
Had we been vaccinated, you ask? Yep. Both of us have had four doses of Moderna.
I don't know what to think about that, except I might have been dead without it, and Ginnie might have been a lot sicker.
We're home, and safe, and that's all I care about.
This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Empty Nest: Our COVID-19 experiences were very different
